At this point, I hope you've done most of your Christmas shopping (and/or making). Only the brave or the foolish have yet to form a holiday shopping plan of attack. *looks around* Alright, so I have a minor confession to make: Courtney and I don't buy gifts for each other.

To put it more bluntly, we just ignore the issue. We vaguely talked about it (albeit a couple years ago now), but somewhere in the mix we started assuming that we wouldn't exchange them.

If I remember correctly, we actually did exchange at least a little something before our daughter was born. We never were big purchasers, though. I'd say we might have exchanged one or two small gifts at most during the dating years. These days, it seems as if every year we have a new excuse to skip exchanging (and certainly purchasing) presents.

Take this year for example. We'll be spending Christmas backpacking around the South Island of New Zealand. Over the couple days around Christmas, we're splurging for a bit more expensive lodging than normal to have internet access (for family back home mostly). We've decided this will be our gift.

Last year, we were saving for our big trip and decided to not exchange or buy gifts for each other. The year before that, we were getting ready for the baby. Before that it was the wedding. My point is not to give you my life story (although it does seem a little busy now that I write it), but to show how it was so easy for us to fall into a routine.

And it's not necessarily all bad. But I'd be lying to say there wasn't part of me that wishes we had a slightly different policy for Christmas gifts. It would be cool to see what Courtney would get me if left to her own brainstorming. And I'm sure she'd be eager to see what I'd come up with.

I guess we want to make certain we don't buy into the consumerism hype. We're trying to keep our possessions extremely minimal and light while traveling, but that doesn't automatically exclude everything from our wishlists.

A couple options I thought up for our married-life Christmas approach:

Keep things the same. Keep focusing on the our project type of mentality. Focus on doing something special together like an event or activity, but that is mutually planned (and thus has no surprise).

Exchange gifts without any restrictions. We know people who fall into this category. Each spouse is trusted to spend or alternatively get creative in whatever way they see fit. There's no similar budget set ahead of time or planning out of the gifts at all. This would be particularly hard for us to do as we have 100% joint finances and wouldn't consider changing that.

Exchange specific pre-planned gifts. A lot of people we know fall into this category, as well. They buy each other gifts, but in reality each spouse actually picks out their own. That seems kind of lame to me, especially when it's between two spouses. It's basically just allocating more splurge money for yourself. That's fine, but its not really what we are looking for.

Exchange gifts under budget restrictions. This seems like the most realistic option for us. We already define a set amount for ‘blow' money each month. By increasing this slightly for Christmas and purchasing our gifts in cash (if possible), we could still have surprises even with joint finances. We could set the restrictions low if we wanted to focus on being creative to save money.

I'm not afraid to admit that a bit of consumerism would be a little refreshing for us. Actually, exchanging a reasonable gift (probably just a single decent one) wouldn't be the end of the world — and it might add a little enjoyment to the process.

Obviously, we wouldn't want to fall off the other side of the wagon and go crazy at the local mall. (Although this seems unlikely given our borderline scroogish history.)

Even if we decided to continue to forgo spending money or even exchanging gifts at all, I'd like to become a little bit more targeted with our approach. Maybe we could pay for a babysitter and spend the evening volunteering in some way together. At the very least we could look back and say, we did XYZ for Christmas two years ago. That seems better than we were saving up for our trip or we bought some bedding for the crib.

Who knows…maybe I'm just suffering from a bit of the consumerism fever this year around. What do you think? What system do you and your significant other employ for swapping Christmas gifts? Do you have any creative ideas we can adopt?

J.D.'s note: I'm going to make an embarrassing public confession. I'm the lamest husband ever when it comes to gifts. I want to give Kris something thoughtful and nice — but I don't. This year, especially, I'm the king of lameness. Kris ordered matching luggage for us. I'm paying for half. That's our Christmas gift exchange. I feel like I need some sort of intervention, so I'm eager to hear your advice for Adam in the comments.

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There are 165 reader responses to "Ask the Readers: Do You Buy Christmas Gifts For Your Spouse?".

KTsays

We really like experience gifts. Our main gifts this year are tickets. He took me to Jersey Boys and I bought tickets for him to the Celtics. The tickets were not very expensive as we didn’t get the best seats but we enjoy spending this time together on a “Christmas date night.” Sometimes the ticket is picked out and sometimes it is a surprise and the receiver is asked to keep a certain night available. It’s great fun and there is no stuff!

I think the best gifts are well thought out. That may or may not mean actually buying something. I’ve been reading GRS for a LONG time now and based on what I know about you and Kris, this is what I’d consider:

1. Go somewhere with her — spend time with her doing something you’ll both enjoy. It can be somewhere close, somewhere inexpensive. I remember reading a post you wrote at some point that said something like, if you knew you had little time left what you would regret was not having spent more time with Kris. You could make that your gift, to her and to yourself. Have a nice meal somewhere she’d like. Go visit a museum with her — find somewhere to go, something to do, that you know she would really enjoy.

2. Write to her. You’re a writer, and a fine one at that. Write her a letter telling her all the things you want to be sure she knows.

You know your wife better than anyone else. Think about something that would mean a great deal to her and do that.

“We’ll be spending Christmas backpacking around the South Island of New Zealand.”

I honestly can’t think of a better gift than that.

I’m single, but I’m slowly moving away from obligatory gifts and toward thoughtful gifts. If there is something you know she really wants, needs, or would love, go ahead and pick it up. You don’t need to tell her, she doesn’t need to reciprocate – it is a GIFT after all.

I’ll repeat the advice I always spout when people want gift ideas without spending a lot of money: surprise them. In my experience, that’s the greatest gift you can give. It has nothing to do with money, but that feeling of “Wow, this person worked hard to totally surprise with _______! That’s awesome!”

It’s the greatest feeling in the world, and I mean to give it. Receiving it looks fun too.

My wife and I have 100% joint finances as well, and we do a budget for gifts to each other. We were talking about this topic last night, actually. We get a lot of joy out of coming up with gift ideas, then bargain-shopping to see how far we can stretch those budgets.

Budget is the best. The smaller the budget, the more inventive and thoughtful you have to be.

Coupons for backrubs or special dinners, or remembering their favorite candy bar are all going to be much more significant and special than some random gadget or cooking appliance.

We’ve done very well with budgets over the years, and have adjusted them for things like planned trips or other large purchases. This year we didn’t pick a budget, and I’m afraid we’re going to out-do each other trying to just keep up with hints. ;)

My husband and I always exchange gifts. To me, much of the joy of the season comes from focusing on others and trying to think of ways to make them happy, so I would feel like I’d missed out completely on the holiday if we either didn’t give each other gifts or if we preplanned the exact gifts we wanted.

Each year, we discuss a specific budget, and stick to it. We discuss things we’d like, but usually the other spouse keeps an eye out for something unexpected. For example, my husband was really sad this year bc his friend was supposed to come for a visit. I was able to arrange that the friend will be coming in June and that they will be going to see a band that they loved in high school. My husband will not be expecting this at all, so I can’t wait for him to see it.

The only thing we did pre-discuss this year was our Santa gifts. Normally Santa does bring the “biggest” gift in our house, but to save money, we decided on getting something for the household. The cost is less than what we normally spend on each other, and it’s something we both wanted to get anyway.

We exchange gifts at Christmas under a strict budget limit with the focus not being on spending all that is in the budget. Our budget this year is $80 per person and if I can find the perfect, thoughtful gift for $40, then that will be it and I won’t just spend the other $40 because that was in the allowance.

On birthdays we focus on experiences instead of gifts. We have a budget for $100 for each others birthday and we spend that money doing something we wouldn’t ordinarily do like go to a show or eat at a nice restaurant or try to cook a nice meal with ingredients that we couldn’t normally afford. It works well for us.

My wife and I have 100% joint finances as well, and I do all the financial managing, so my wife always uses cash when buying me presents. We haven’t had a set plan year after year, but we generally stick to a loose budget based on where we are financially (or where we think we are, as it’s only been since earlier this year that we’ve been really trying to get our finances under control).

This year I told her not to spend much money on me, as I’m trying to pay off my car and would rather have the money for that, but I know she has spent some money on a gift for me. I’ve gotten her a couple gifts, but not what I originally planned on, since it just doesn’t fit into the budget this year. I couldn’t imagine not giving some sort of gift to her. For Christmas and birthdays, we usually do gifts, but our anniversary is usually a joint gift for both of us, or an experience we’ll both really enjoy; usually something more expensive than either of us would spend the money on otherwise. We might think about doing an experience gift in years to come, though.

My husband and I exchange gifts almost only with each other! We get something small for my sister and his parents, but for each other, we go all out. We both maintain detailed Amazon wish lists, and birthdays and Christmas are when we get to receive the more frivolous of those items (and anything else that’s been hinted at or guessed!). Most of the stuff we get is stuff we probably would have bought anyway, but its so much fun to get it all under the tree! And offcourse there are the surprises that the other person never would have thought of… ;) we’re just big gift givers, I guess, but only to each other!

This year I spend the equivalent of 100USD on presents for the rest of the family. They know that we are in an all time low until I graduate and find a job, so they don’t expect a lot of expensive stuff.

My wife and I, when we were just starting out, limited our gifts to each other to one christmas ornament that had some significance to the prior year. (We didn’t really have anything to put on the tree other than generic bulbs). We’ve continued that tradition and, now its alot of fun to look back at what all of the ornaments represent (babies, trips, etc.) and makes trimming the tree more personal.

A trip is a great gift, an experience instead of stuff to sit around. Mr Chiots and are too practical to buy gifts. We occationally buy things for each other, but not really. We often end up buying something we need for each other as a gift, but we’d buy it anyways.

I love reading everyone’s ideas and the ways they do things – wonderful!

In the past, we’ve basically increased our blow money for the month and treated it like gift money that each person can spend on whatever they want for themselves. Neither of us really speak the “receiving gifts” love language so neither of us is bothered by it and we both end up being able to pick out what we want.

This year, I decided the kids (ages 3 and 5) might find it odd that there aren’t gifts under the tree for mommy and daddy so we discussed some potential items and used part of our budgets for gifts to placed under the tree. We’ll each still have some cash to add to our personal blow money, but not as much as in the past.

We celebrate Hannukah, which in my family is not a gift giving holiday apart from some small tokens. However, we do make a big deal about birthdays. We also share 100% finances. In our case, its not so much hiding the spending or amount as we don’t do too extravagent purchases, but hiding what the gift is so its a surprise. We also try to do experiences or non-item gifts like massages or classes. I did get caught this year with one gift when I ordered it with my DH’s user, went into his email to erase the email documenting the order, but then he got the email on shipment… This year his “big” gift was a indi movie of the month club.

Yes, we do. These have run the gamut from VERY simple to not so simple. One year my husband went into a Whole Foods, I think it was, and bought several small food items like fancy jellies, crackers, etc. He wrapped each individually and gave them to me all in a bag. It was great fun to unwrap each of his choices, laugh and exclaim over them. Another year he totally blew me away by presenting me (us, really) a new stereo system. (!!!) I typically get him a special calender for his office and some books I know he will like. The complicating factor is that our anniversary is Dec. 23 so we are celebrating both at once.

I think it depends on the person. For some people, gifts are the most important thing in the world. A gift is the most powerful expression of pure love for these people. In that case, I would give them tons of gifts!

But other people don’t care about gifts at all. They would be a good candidate to eliminate the gift giving process.

We don’t buy holiday (birthday/Xmas) gifts for each other willy-nilly. We only buy if there is something we know the other would like or has wanted. For example, my birthday was a few weeks ago and all I asked for was for him to cook me my favorite meal, and that is what I received. I think this saves a lot of money on useless gifts we won’t use, and we aren’t any less happy.

We generally buy one gift for the two of us jointly. In fact, our parents usually send us money for Christmas, so we will often add that in as well to get something REALLY nice.

As our kids are getting older, we are starting to make sure that there are some presents under the tree for us too. So we each make a list of possible gift items, not just for each other to buy but for the kids to buy us as well. We usually keep that as smaller stuff so that we can still buy ourselves the joint gift though.

Since we got married, we do not normally buy each other holiday gifts (or birthday, anniversary or Valentines). We sometimes buy a joint gift, something for the home, something we can use together or we put money into our vacation/travel fund. This year we bought a new digital camera and we are counting that as our Christmas gift.

Our budget is joint but we each have an allowance that we use for day to day spending so suprise gifts would likely need to come out of the allowance money. I do sometimes buy gifts for Mr. Sam but most often its during the year and it something perfect that I’ve come across.

I try to ask my wife every year and she refuses to do the gifting thing. She wants an experience gift instead. So we’ve decided to start a tradition of going on a weekend getaway in a local campground. Nothing fancy. Our daughter’s gonna be with grandma and we’ll be in a rented cabin and spend some nice quiet time together.

We usually go with a symbolic gift. I might get her a book at a used bookstore for $5.00. Or one year she and the boys said a Novena (a set of prayers said each day for a specified number of days) for the success of my internet business. We don’t spend any significant sums of money on anyone other than the two boys (and even there we let grandparents and aunts and such play a significant role and aim to keep the materialism to some sort of reasonable limit).

My wife and I have always given each other gifts (and have always had shared finances). We’ve usually gone with a rough budget number (and also have both usually exceeded it by a bit). However, this year we’re in a bit of a tighter financial situation, so the budget is less and a bit more strict.
I can’t imagine not getting each other something. I’m appalled at the people who don’t buy gifts for each other (or let the other pick their own gift) because it’s “too hard.” Isn’t that sort of the point – that you were willing to put some effort into finding a good gift??

We don’t exchange gifts either. Instead, we go visit family: my parents one year, my husband’s the next. We didn’t plan it this way, but the effect of the travel has been that for us the holiday season is about reconnecting with loved ones, not spending money. In fact, this year our total gift budget is $100. We spend $25 on each of our four nieces and nephews.

My suggestion for JD: women like it when you cook for them, and it hardly costs anything. When my husband and I have a special day, one of us often makes the other one a nice meal and then we get to sit and enjoy it together. For the holidays you could dress it up a bit.

Also, last year I attempted this gift of a CD I had burned of myself reading a book to my mother. The problem was that it takes a long time to read something aloud (easy to forget if you never do it), so I recommend choosing a short book. She really liked it even though I only got through a few chapters and it is already a year later… how time flies. p.s. to record the readings I used a freeware program I found online.

I’m single, but for my immediate family I love to do more homemade or thoughtful gifts. I’ve started making digital scrapbooks and printing out a copy for each family member of the fun experiences we did that year. Or I’ll try to paint (*cough*–it’s impressionism, really!) a landscape from a great photograph someone took. Or make a collage of various photos for the wall. Much of my family is like this: for graduation my sister and I both got homemade quilts made of old clothes from when we were growing up, with squares of pictures of us at various ages and various important scenes from childhood. Useful AND thoughtful!

My husband and I don’t give Chanukah gifts to each other. In my family, this holiday is considered to be more for the children then for the adults, so while we go all out for the kids, the adults just get joy in watching them enjoy themselves.

Truly, if there is something I want, I just get it.

For birthdays and anniversaries, I really love just going out on a “date” to a nice restaurant and enjoying the time spent together.

We haven’t exchanged Christmas presents since 1983 when we moved away from our families. When my husband asked that year what I wanted for Christmas, I told him to just get me back home during the Christmas season to visit. And that’s what we’ve given each other every year since – usually a two-week trip. He did surprise me one year with a console tv, but that was a gift for the whole family as well and our old tv had died. And one year he replaced the lost diamond in my engagement ring without telling me and gave it to me for Christmas. I just try to keep him supplied with home-made Christmas goodies!!

Sometimes we do, sometimes we don’t. This year we went to NYC after T-giving – that’s our gift to each other. Last year we moved 500 miles – our gift to each other was a new house :) Now we live near family and they usually get us most of the gifts we want (DVD, coat, things like that). But when we lived in Memphis we were 500 miles from our family – we tended to buy each other small gifts then because we were alone at Christmas (he always had to work and we couldn’t travel til the 26th). So we bought small gifts then just so things weren’t so depressing.

But we’re adults and we buy the things we need and occasionally the things we want throughout the year – so we really don’t need to go out and buy something at Christmas – instead we let all the other crazies go downtown and shop.

This Christmas my budget is very tight and I am giving the absolute minimum. My family has helped me remodel my house so I am giving them nice gifts (the amount of labor I saved is immeasurable). Other than that I tell them don’t buy me gifts as I cannot afford to reciprocate.

I am actually sickened by the consumerism hype around the holidays (and in the USA in general) as I know first hand how much debt and stress it causes. A lot of my family has fallen into it and will never get out. I make a conscious effort to buy as little as possible in all areas, gifts and otherwise.

I figure why would I buy an Xbox when I can take that money and spend 2 weeks in Thailand having real experiences instead of virtual. Video games are fun but not worth $50 a pop to me anymore. I have no problem spending on travel and experiences as I have those “assets” for life. Experiences are what I live for!

I am willing to bet that if you bought someone an experience, no matter how bad they wanted that playstation, they will appreciate it and remember it many years down the road. Well after they sold that old playstation on ebay for $20 after it sat for 5 years in a closet. They may not even realize this fact but you will know that you gave the best gift.

Gift-giving is about making the other person happy. I know it’s cool and hip to be “anti-consumerism” and fulfilling your ultra-hip Web 2.0 lifestyle, jetting around the world and doing hiking. That’s cool if it makes you happy.

I really want to get an XBox this year, and some more Wii games. Why? Am I bowing to the whims of the great gods of marketing? No. My circle of friends all have the XBox, and we are now older — with wives and kids and commitments. We are Old People. So where we used to start the weekend at a local bar Wednesday night, we now have playdates, ballet lessons, swimming lessons, family commitments and so on. This makes getting together as adults to be more of a challenge than it used to be. But nearly everyone has an XBox, and the XBox has wonderful online gaming capabilities. So we can pick a time after the kids are in bed and at least have some fun together.

For the Wii games, we live in a part of the country where going outside isn’t much of an option in wintertime without serious commitment. So if I can put on Wii Sports or Wii Fit my daughter and I can have some fun together on a cold winter day, and at least we are a little active.

So when thinking about gifts, think about the other person and what makes THEM happy. Not what makes YOU happy. Maybe they dig “consumerist” stuff. Maybe they would like an “experience”. Maybe they like eating out, or a day to themselves. Figure that out and they will have a memorable gift!

I personally don’t see anything wrong with picking out your own gifts.

A couple weeks ago, I was admiring a handbag in a store window. It was “only” $65, but alas out of our budget for the month. My husband said that it could be my Christmas present from him. It was sweet, and I returned the favor when he was admiring some sunglasses at the mall.

Jordan and I exchange gifts AND do stockings for each other. We put an absolute max at $500. Which may seem like a lot, but it’s a rare thing that we spend this much on ourselves, let alone each other – so it’s a real treat.

My husband love, love, loves to give gifts, so he would be terribly disappointed if we agreed not to exchange gifts. lol So yeah, we do buy gifts for each other. We enjoy picking out something the other person will love, and we only use cash to pay for the gifts.

We love to buy each other gifts, especially at Christmas! For us, gift giving is part of the spirit of Christmas. It’s just fun, plus it can be an opportunity to surprise each other and add a little spark with a romantic or meaningful gift.

I actually compiled a Top Ten list of Best Gifts for a Married Couple on my site. You’ll find a mix of fun, serious and romantic ideas, but they all have the opportunity to enhance your marriage.

My s.o. and I do exchange gifts. We agree on a budget ahead of time but aren’t too strict about it…we’re both “givers” so a big part of the joy of Christmas for us is choosing that perfect gift for someone and seeing their face light up when it’s opened. I’d miss that if we didn’t exchange anything.

Another thing we’ve done is to choose a meaningful little project–for instance, working together to make a photo calendar for the upcoming year.

I like to buy my husband gifts…as long as I have an idea for what I want to buy him, haha. I love picking out something special for him, even if it’s small and inexpensive. It makes me feel great to surprise him.

I don’t know how he feels about buying me gifts, but I guess since I like to buy them for him then he knows he better buy something for me, too. ;)

My husband and I do exchange gifts, and we encourage our children (4 & 6) to pick something (inexpensive) for each other and their parents. It doesn’t matter what it is — an experience like a trip or a show, a new zoom lens for a camera, or fleece pajamas for cold winter mornings — the most important thing in my family is that you try to think of something the other person would like.
We also have a budget and that was cash, so it can be a surprise. Personally, I hate knowing exactly what I am getting for Christmas or birthdays. I much prefer the thoughtful gifts, regardless of price.
I don’t think the gift exchange itself is essential, but the idea that my husband has tried hard to think of something I would enjoy, that is essential.

We absolutely do gifts – I absolutely hate shopping for myself, but I would be so sad if my spouse or family members told me not to get them anything, because part of the joy of the season (and birthdays, etc.) for me is thinking of the people I love and how to put a smile on their faces. And because we’re so frugal in other areas of our life, this is one of those areas that I’m okay with splurging a little. The travel thing sounds great if that’s what you and your wife are interested in, but I’d rather curl up at home and watch my family open gifts :)

@JD: Of my husband’s favorite gifts, most have been really inexpensive but thoughtful. Like the letter I gave him for our wedding, telling him all of the reasons I love him and all of my dreams for our future. Or the “tickets” I gave him as “permission” to rent movies I’d normally veto. Or the “date in a box” I’ve given him several times – it’ll have popcorn, soda, candy, a gift card for pizza and for movie rentals, or a gift certificate for a restaurant and the theater or other things we like to do together. She’s not looking to be blown away – it’s nice just to remind her that you’re glad you chose her.

Gifts are not about the money. A luggage tag with a note describing the owner….”this suitcase belongs to the woman who causes my face to light up, my heart to skip a beat…etc, etc” would be an awesome GIFT that would cost you maybe $2. My husband and I believe craigslist and thrift shop gifts are totally acceptable but inexpensive little ‘I love you and thanks for what you do for me gifts’ are worth a million dollars at Christmas. Enjoy your travels and remember great GIFTS don’t have to cost a penny.

My husband and I exchange gifts for Christmas. He has no trouble spending money on me or the kids throughout the year, but doesn’t spend a whole lot of money on himself. Christmas is my excuse to be able to get him the things he has expressed interest in but talked himself out of.

This year, though, he got his big gift in October, as it was a joint birthday/Christmas gift, so his Christmas morning will be less exciting this year.

We do the same thing! We decided to stop exchanging gifts a few years ago based on the level of stress it causes. I tend to buy things I want, when I want them. Well, the 3-4 months leading up to Christmas I was forbidden from buying things that could have been gifts she could have bought…

I was debating this with a friend yesterday. She told me I wasn’t being romantic, and then in the next breath, told me she told her husband the exact gift to buy her, the price, and where to go. She was then stressing about what to get him! Doesn’t seem very romantic or practical to me!

My husband and I do exchange Christmas gifts. We usually give each other several ideas so that we have some things to choose from and some ideas for the kids as well. They love to go shopping w/ me to buy a gift for Dad. We do keep it under a pre-set amount and I often mention things that do not cost much; this year I have mentioned that I would love for him to detail my car! Something I would love, but I am way too frugal to pay $125 for a professional to do it.

Me and my finance have always done cheap, homemade gifts for each other at Christmas. My favorite so far is mine for him this year – an anagram for his name!

No matter how much you are “against” consumerism, there is always room in your budget to write a love-letter, check out a book of poems from the library and serenade your wife over your thrifty leftovers, give her a night in the bedroom of complete pampering with massages, etc. I am astonished at how many of you family men ignore your wives and put all the effort on your children at Christmas.

One of our dear family friends asks her husband for a 3 line love letter each year, and each year he buys her jewelry instead. A little attention goes a long way at Christmas – especially when your wife is so busy making your home festive on a budget!

In our 14 years together my husband and I have always exchanged gifts. Some have been expensive, while others have been free. It isn’t about the cost or even stuff, it’s about the act of giving to someone who is such an important part of your life. My husband is a wonderful gift giver, and I try my best to be the same for him.

If you are opposed to giving a thing, why not gift coupons for activities you can do together over your vacation, or things like, “sleeping in until noon,” a gift any parent would cherish!

We would never have Christmas without gifts, even if we only buy things the other person needs, like clothes, it’s one of the few times of year we actually spend money.

JD, I think you and your wife are practical to share the cost of the luggage, but getting a small token-whether it be the wonderful suggestion of a love letter, or a book you know she’d love-would be appreciated more than you realize.

Adam, why not plan to take Courtney somewhere special on your trip, or find a restaurant she might like and plan to take her there? Even replacing something that is worn out or getting something she feels she needs for the trip would be nice.

The Hubs and I were actually having a conversation about this yesterday! We usually exchange some gifts with each other, but we always set a budget as we’re still struggling financially a little due to job issues (thanks, teacher cutbacks!), and buy one mutual “big present” that we share and budget for, which usually is hockey tickets to see the SJ Sharks! (GO SHARKS!)

We were talking last night, and The Hubs told me exactly what he wants, to the point where he directed me to the website and pointed to the shirt he wants. Then he got annoyed with me because I told him I don’t want to know what he’s getting me, I like to be surprised; we compromised by me emailing him a list of items within our pre-set budget with at least a few things indicated that have priority. =)

We don’t exchange gifts; we just buy them for family members. Most people think this is Scrooge-like, but I know my husband, who does a million wonderful things throughout the year, just isn’t great at thinking up gifts. So when we were dating, I’d drop hints to help him out. But now, with a joint account that I check every day and my mission to reduce Stuff, it just seemed a bit silly.

One year we bought luggage for an upcoming trip. One year we went to dinner and The Nutcracker. This year I’m not sure if we’ll even do that because we’re running out of time and our schedules are hectic.

There’s just not anything we need. People might think it’s unromantic or no fun, but as sappy as it sounds, all I care about is that we’re happy and healthy.

My husband and I have never exchanged gifts. I’m not sure why. It just seemed that anything we wanted, we would get for ourselves. We do buy each other things occasionally when we think of something great – I gave him a subscription to National Geographic which he loved and he bought me a Wii and Wii Fit – but for the most part we don’t need more random stuff. It makes the few times that we do get something even better.

We do, and we love surprising one another as well as our now adult children. Sometimes with experiences, sometimes with small thoughtful gifts. One year my husband surprised me by loading me into the car and spiriting me off to see The Nutcracker because I love the ballet. One year, I took him to a world famous garden in our area for the Christmas display–something he used to do as a kid. And years ago, I made the dorkiest Christmas stockings ever for him and my two sons as well as our dog. Christmas morning is still spent opening small surprises that the four of us give each other–we secretly slip them into the stockings the night before. Nothing large–jars of special jams, spices or honey, pens and pencils, a candle or mittens–you get the idea. What little thing brings your spouse pleasure? Wrap it in something pretty–a scrap of fabric tied with a ribbon–and put it under her pillow. She’ll be charmed.

We give gifts, have 100% joint finances and no official budget. As with S above, we don’t try to hide the price, we just like the surprise. Neither of us is inclined to spend unnecessarily (e.g. we still have the world’s ugliest ceiling fan/lamp in our kitchen, 9 years after we bought the house, because it still works) so at Christmas we have a chance to get something that the other would never buy for him/herself.

Though we have no budget, we both have a sense of what we can afford any given year. Some years have been trinkets, this year it will be more – a stylish motorcycle jacket for him and (I’m guessing here, but he’s not too subtle, my guy) “new” skis for me.

And to JD, I’m sure Kris has long ago accepted that you don’t shine in the gift giving department. My guy didn’t do much for years (his family gave small gifts or needed clothing, mine does one big present per person from my parents as well as small gifts exchanged between us, which he found overwhelming). About 4 years ago he got comfortable with the idea of a bigger Christmas gift and now he enjoys the plotting and planning with family ahead of time to surprise me. If he went back to doing almost nothing, I’d be just fine with it. I love him for who he is, not for how he shops, or doesn’t, for gifts.

When my wife and I were lugging around a ton of credit card debt, we always went all-out on gifts for each other (why not add insult to injury??). Then we started to grow a brain and realize that we needed to stop spending so much; so we agreed to only buy one gift that each of us could enjoy (still used credit card). Finally we decided to pay off all our debts, so we decided not to buy gifts for each other at all. We used our Christmas bonuses to buy gifts for others in the family, but we skipped buying for each other.

Now we are completely debt free, and this year I decided (in July) that I wanted to buy my wife a Kindle for Christmas (she loves reading). I set up a savings goal on smartypig.com for $300. SmartyPig offers additional cash through some of their retail providers (Amazon is one), so I was able to get an additional 3% on my savings. After I set my savings goal, Amazon dropped the price of the Kindle to $259, so now I have some money left over for her to be able to purchase books.

I guess the best advice I can offer is each spouse needs to be on the same page. Agree to a dollar amount (don’t go over!), agree on a single gift to share, or agree not to buy gifts at all (don’t go buy even a small gift if you agreed not to buy anything — you’ll hurt your spouse’s feelings). Agree and no cheating!

I second Rich, #34. Shiner has given me gifts like this–I’ll mention how much I have always loved a particular candleholder of my mom’s, or how I wish I had a good-quality pan large enough to make four pancackes at once, and a few months later he’s been thoughtful enought to (1) remember that I expressed that want, even though maybe I only ever said it once or twice, and never in the context of “I would like X for my birthday…”, and (2) hunt for something that fits the bill. When I get a gift like that, or can give a gift like that, it’s not just about the thing, or about whatever money was spent on it, it’s the effort that was put into noticing the other person in the every day, and THAT is the real gift: knowing that this person cares about you so much that they put in the time and energy into remembering those little things so they can surprise you with something that they know will make you happy.

An experience can absolutely fit that bill, too. But whether it is an experience or an item, I would never want to give up exchanging gifts with Shiner because then I would be giving up the opportunity to appreciate that about him, or to do the same for him.

Sappy, yes. But totally honest.

We have mostly separate accounts and it is up to each of us to decide how much to spend on the other. We stopped having official gift budgets for one another when he paid off his credit cards, now it is at our discretion, but I would be surprised if it were ever over $100–usually it’s well under.

DW and I rarely exchange gifts. Some years we wait until after the holidays, and each pick something (lame though the author might find it) that we wish we had gotten. Other years one or the other of us sneaks in a gift; since it’s secret, unplanned, and not every year, we don’t make a budget and just trust each other to spend wisely. (We have to do that on a daily basis anyways.) A couple of times my wife has given me a homemade craft that she had to work on during her lunch hour for months, so sweet. Most often we get each other no gift at all and don’t worry about it.

JD,
My wife and I once tried this idea and it worked out well. We set a limit on the dollar value that could be spent, but then we each bought our own presents. On Christmas, my wife open my gifts (the ones I bought for me) and I opened her gifts (the ones she bought for her). This way, everyone gets what they want within the limits that are preset. And the element of surprise isn’t ruined b/c I had no idea what she bought and she had no idea what I bought. No returns or closet/draw fillers that never get worn.
Tony

I’m just back from our Christmas gift to each other- this year it was a trip to the Yukon to go snow shoeing and dog-sledding.
Most years it is a weekend somewhere nearer to home, or a nice meal out, but we hadn’t had a holiday this year so we splurged on a bigger Christmas trip.
On Christmas day we exchange only very small gifts- usually about $30, this year I have bought my partner a book, some coffee and some chocolate.

We absolutely exchange gifts, with the budget being larger or smaller depending on circumstances. We are both huge readers, and we have wishlists for books, so those are easy, and always appreciated. We don’t have a lot of toys or gadgets, and we don’t need the newest, best whatever it is, but there will always be a home for books (and movies) in our house.

I’m also lame. After striking out several years in a row, I gave up. In any case, DH gets more pleasure out of the hunt than the actual gift… So… I give him money. 10x his weekly allowance.

He does get stuff for me, out of said allowance. Somehow that makes me appreciate it more than when he was spending out of joint purchases. This year he got me a pair of really nice (soft, warm, cotton) sleeping pants. A previous year he got me the top 47 (chirp!) rated dark chocolates off of one of his foodie sites, and labeled each one with a description and how it related to us or our love. That one made me cry.

If I had a sentimental bone in my body and craft skillz I’d be able to do things like the ABCs of why I love you… but instead I just give cash. And love.

We don’t exchange gifts, but give ourselves a joint gift. We will be taking an Alaskan cruise in 2010 and that is the gift to ourselves for this year and probably next year. (We sprung for a larger cabin.) One year in mid-December we had central heat/air installed in the house; admittedly not very sexy, but every extremely cold or extremely hot day we thank each other for our Christmas gift. Friends and family think we’re strange, but it works for us!

One year, my aunt mailed everyone in the family a set of questions relating to Christmas. Things like “what was the most memorable Christmas for you?” and “what was the best present you ever got?” She then collated the answers – minus attributions! – into a book she stapled together with cardstock covers, and gave each nuclear family in the extended group their own copy. The extended family had hours of fun on Christmas day poring over the book, discussing it, and trying to guess whose answers were whose. I highly recommend this, down to leaving off the attributions.

This year, I finally finished typing in a bunch of letters Mom had written home and scanning a bunch of photos that my parents had taken when we lived in Tanzania when I was a young child. I’ve put them into a book, along with reminiscing from Mom and I, and I’m going to self-publish it through Lulu.com and give my grandfather a copy of it. And as both Mom and I got slowed down, me by deadlines at work and her by cataract surgery, the book itself is going to show up for his birthday at the end of January, but I’m going to print out the cover I’ve assembled and give that to him at Christmas.

Personally, my experience is generally women think about gift giving much more than men. And, I think women would like the gift to be a suprise, which adds a significant amount of risk. So women, if a certain kind of gift is important, give up on the suprise aspect and tell him what you want.

We used to buy gifts for each other that we would wrap. Not to say it couldn’t go back that direction, but we haven’t done that for two years now. Last year, we purchased bicycles for ourselves and this year, we bought a couch. So, no surprises, just saving up and paying cash.

We do get gifts for each other, but we don’t spend huge amounts. And we let each other know what we’d like in advance, by sharing wishlists (on Amazon & other sites that do them) and links to various items elsewhere online. That way there’s still an element of surprise (since we don’t know what the other person will pick from the lists), but there’s no agonising over what to buy nor the risk of getting/buying something unwanted.

I do enjoy finding just the right gift for my husband. Usually there’s something that he wants or needs that he won’t get for himself. One year a wool coat to replace the dearly-loved one that was falling apart; one year a power tool he’d been talking about for months; stuff like that. I can usually find a good deal, and I love surprising him that way.
He also loves gift-giving, and surprising me. I would never want to take that away from him. :)

The best gifts are all about the thought and preparation that went behind them, not the gift itself. For example, my husband had a person teach him how to knit so that he could make me a new scarf for Christmas -I LOVED that!

I’m not sure if this will work for everyone, but I keep a Word document with gift ideas for my loved ones year round. When they mention something that they would like to have or do, I make a mental note of it and add it to the list later. Sometimes they don’t even remember saying it, but I know that it will be a gift that they want and they also appreciate that I remembered something that long!

I buy two or three gifts for my husband, he buys two or three gifts for me, and we have a $100 spending limit on each other. Also, we each have a stocking — we go to Target with a $25 spending limit and give ourselves about fifteen minutes to buy little stocking stuffers for one another.

I’ve found that this system works really well. I can usually get something my husband wants and something I think he needs, and he does the same for me. Also, we do our best to maintain the element of surprise — I still have no idea what he’s gotten for me this Christmas.

I think we fall into the buying specific preplanned gifts areas. We allow the other to pick something out we don’t allow our selves the rest of the year to buy, like extra comics for him, or clothes/jewelry for me. Other than that the gifts are small and almost a tradition: I get him warm socks and nuts/snacks, he gets me a funny daily calendar and chocolates. Regarding gifts/xmas it’s really oriented around the kids which is how it should be!

This will be my second Christmas with my husband. When we were dating we discovered we were both individuals that rolled our eyes at unnecessary and moreover, unthoughtful gift giving, especially the gifts one opens and thinks, I wish they hadn’t purchased/made this. We’re slowly climbing our way out of student loan and credit card debt so we’re especially frugal and tend to stick with the very useful and inexpensive gifts. We both keep exhaustive wish lists on Google Docs and are now loving the Universal Feature on Amazon but these gifts range anywhere from Kitchen Aid attachments, to Season 2 of Arrested Development to more expensive jewelry but all items are things we would completely enjoy, appreciate and serve some purpose. We had already chosen a price point for this year’s gift giving but when our car wouldn’t start on Monday and needed $500 in repairs we looked at each other and said, Merry Christmas. Point being, we just go with the flow. I’m inclined to love the element of surprise and love a little indulgence but am always fearful of receiving a gift I won’t enjoy so that’s where my wish list serves him. He pretty much feels the same way and we’d love to shower each other with the more expensive items but we reserve those for the future.

We have generally stopped giving gifts to each other because we have everything we need and most of what we want.

About six years ago, my husband got a blank journal and wrote what he loved about me in it and gave it to me for Christmas. He adds an entry for Valentine’s day, our anniversary, and my birthday. I joined suit and bought a journal for him and write an entry for him on those days as well. It’s a running log of appreciation and probably the best gift we give each other.

The wife and I are doing the something similar. As we are both fighting the war against credit card debt, the last thing we need is to buy each other frivilous gifts. Instead we are planning to pool our money together for some household items that we desparately need.

J.D., if you really do want to get something special for your wife, listen. I’m sure as the year goes by she will mention or notice or talk about something she likes, but wouldn’t buy for herself. Then surprise her with it at an appropriate time (birthday, anniversary, holidays). It’s not the size of the gift that’s important, but the thoughtfulness behind it.

We usually just buy something for the house (we always have renovation projects going) or like this year we bought a laptop in November and “called” that our gift to each other. Usually we sneak in a $10-15 surprise gift too.

We do give each other gifts. For me, it’s a way of saying, “After 24 years of marriage, you still mean enough to me to take the time and effort to pickout a thoughtful gift and to let you know you are not taken for granted.” Usually we buy each other something a little frivolous that we would not normally buy for ourselves…like a favorite expensive parfum or cologne. Experience gifts are great too…even if it is just dinner and a night at a spa/resort.

In short, if anyone on your list derserves a gift from the heart, it is the person that walks through life with you holding your hand.

My boyfriend and I have a budget of $200 for each other. We keep lists of things that we’d like, along with prices and where the item(s) are sold. The lists are long enough (3-5 single spaced pages) that you can easily get something you know the other person would enjoy but that they won’t necessarily be expecting. We also sometimes keep our own lists of ideas about what the other person might like, to make it a true surprise.

Our own wish lists are also very helpful when dealing with friends or family that we maybe don’t see super often (and thus who might not know exactly what we’d like) but want to get us a nice gift. We usually give them an edited version of the list.

This is only my second Christmas with my husband, and we still like to surprise each other, so we’ve set a $25 Christmas gift limit, and we’re each buying one present for the other person. We’d prefer to have an “experiential” gift that we shared, but we just don’t have it in our budget right now to do anything out of the ordinary, so for now we’re sticking with regular gifts. It’s fun to wonder what the other person is getting you!

We exchange gifts. How it works with is is I give my husband broad suggestions (such as “maybe a necklace since I’ve just started wearing jewelry” or “maybe tickets to a play or something”) and he gets surprised with whatever random things I come up with. Except he has pretty much noticed that he tends to get things that he shows am interest in throughout the year, so I don’t know how much of a surprise it really is.

I guess I am going to have to go contrary to most of what I read here. We exchange gifts and never set a budget. The gifts are usually a mix of something we have expressed an interest in but probably would not buy ourselves and then surprises. These are not unplanned expenses- we both put money away during the year for gift purchases on Christmas, anniversary and birthdays.

If you have got something that works, I think you should stick with it. But seriously, every time I hear a couple explain why they don’t give each other gifts it sounds like a major cop out to me. Instead of worrying about buying your partner “frivolous” gifts, you should listen to that person, invest a little of your self in the project and find something nice that you are excited to give. This is the person you are sharing your life with. There are many opportunities to celebrate that commitment- Christmas happens to be a pretty fun one. In my humble opinion…

Oh and @ J.D., I’d like to point out that it’s not too late to un-lame things for this year if you feel Kris would enjoy a gift. The best gifts I’ve received have been when my husband or son have done things for me that I hate doing or don’t have time to do. (Washing my car, really scrubbing the stove, etc.)

Also it sounds like Kris loves canning and gardening, so something related to that might be fun too.

My wife and I don’t exchange gifts either. And we’re fine with that. Personally, I think people who demand/expect their spouse to buy them a gift are the same ones who expect everyone to fawn all over them on their birthdays….in other words, ‘attention whores’. And I say to them – grow up!

My husband and I don’t make it an issue to get each other a gift for Christmas. We make it more about our kids, since they get consumed by the excitement of the holidays. We just make it a point to treat each other with little things throughout the year, without using a birthday or holiday as an excuse/reason/guilt-trip for getting each other gifts. However, if there is an awesome deal around this time of year on something we’ve been wanting then we’ll gladly buy it without the least bit of remorse.

I used to do the getting him a gift of something he’d mentioned earlier in the year… but the thing was, if he hadn’t gotten it for himself by Christmas he had talked himself out of wanting it.

I do feel a little better reading some of these comments though… some things suggested (cooking a favorite meal, taking over a disliked chore, spending time together on something new) are things that we do randomly during the year to express our love for each other.

My SO and I exchange gifts with a limit, but we also do stockings with no limit. It is so much fun to come up with ideas that fit the limit — especially because I like to get a few gifts, not just one. This pushes me to really bargain shop and get creative about what I’m giving. The stockings are usually full of small things and candy, but every once in awhile something nice makes it in there — since there is no limit. It’s not expected, but just gives us some wiggle room in case we want to splurge a little. Plus it’s not like we’re fitting a flat screen TV in there…:)
In the past I’ve also done experience gifts. Taking a trip to Whistler for Xmas, or booking a January trip in lieu of presents at Xmas. I think that works really well too. However, in those cases I still did stockings…old habits are hard to break.

We usually exchange small gifts for Christmas with a budget limit, because the holiday’s very important to my wife. We both usually end up getting something that’s really a present for both of us to enjoy.

For example, this year I bought my wife a huge photo collage frame that will hang in our living room (shhh…don’t tell her). She will absolutely love it, I know, but it’s really a present that we’ll both enjoy.

We’ve never really exchanged holiday gifts before. We usually save that that for our birthdays. Maybe its because we don’t have kids so the Christmas holidays is not at the forefront of our minds. When we do exchange gifts, we dont set a limit, but we know not to go overboard…

In 2009 we spent a week in the Bahamas, went kayaking at Point Reyes, sailed the San Francisco Bay, went wine tasting in Sonoma, and spent two weeks in Costa Rica.

In just the last month or so I bought myself a new wetsuit and a new surfboard, and I bought my wife a kitchenaid stand mixer and some clothes. We did 100,000 mile ($1000) maintenance on my wife’s car, and spent another grand on vet bills for a sick pet (he’s better now).

Those things don’t really relate directly to Christmas gift giving, but if you consider what we’ll remember about our year, it’s not going to be a new ipod or nice coat or whatever else we might get each other for Christmas. We’ve made lots of great memories this year and all our needs are fulfilled, an extra trinket each isn’t going to add much. Christmas gifts between us just don’t seem necessary.

I get a lot of joy from giving gifts, especially when I know they’ll be appreciated. My boyfriend and I have separate finances and drastically different budgets. Going to the mall and thinking, I have to pick something out today is not the kind of gift shopping I’d ever do for him. I don’t have a lot to spend on him, but sometimes I see something that I know he would love and buy it for him, sometimes well in advance of a holiday, and then wait for a good time to give it. Also, every year he travels across the country to see his family for the holidays and I go to his house and clean it from top to bottom! In the past I’ve given him gift cards for cooking classes, books I thought he’d like (purchased at a used bookstore, which I knew he’d prefer over new books), and the best was when I built him a worm bin and set it up at his house when he was gone for the holidays! – Basically, the best gifts are ones that he’ll love but would have procrastinated on getting himself.

This year I bought him the Planet Earth series on DVD. We both loved watching it on Netflix and talked about buying it but it was originally $75. Now it’s on clearance everywhere and I got it for $22. I’m so excited to curl up on the sofa with him and watch it this winter and I’m sure he’ll love that too. (And i’ll be doing the cleaning again as well)

Our “exchange” typically consists of a joint purchase of a big gift that we both want. One year it was a Nintendo Wii. This year it’s a new flat-screen TV. No surprise, but that’s okay with us.

One year, we didn’t exchange anything, which was fine by us, but boy, did we take a lot of flak from our family members with whom we shared Christmas on that one… my mom was aghast that we “didn’t remember each other at Christmas” and thought the whole idea was “pretty awful”.

I don’t like to be surprised, but like to have something to unwrap under the tree. My husband and I usually buy each other books from our Amazon wish lists.
For birthdays we go out to a restaurant or make a nice dinner.

I think it is little wonder that culturally we’re in financial trouble when television commercials suggest that buying a 60″ plasma TV is par for the course for a Christmas gift for the husband in the family (I’ve never seen a TV ad where the husband gets one for his wife).

On the other hand, going into debt for a consumer purchase is kind of a gift that keeps on giving. You get pretty statements every month and the opportunity to pay more and more. ;)

We have a monthly allowance, and we create a budget for our Christmas gifts (a set amount for each other and a general fund for the rest of the gifts). The monthly allowance can be used however we see fit, and we’ve each used at least one month’s allowance toward Christmas gifts for each other. To keep gifts a surprise but know we’re not just buying junk or unwanted trinkets, we each keep Amazon wish lists that we can buy off of for one another. It also makes for nice surprises throughout the year. But I always try to get a little creative with my gifts and pick out something I know he could use but wouldn’t otherwise get himself. This year, I bought him a nice but inexpensive briefcase, a mug for warming up soup (which he’s always eating as a snack), and I created a picture scrapbook online from Scrapblog from our cruise over the summer.

My wife and I do not exchange gifts. A few years ago we both decided that we were tired of all the consumerism tied to the holidays, and decided not to exchange gifts. We instead take the money we would have normally spent on each other and adopt a family through a local charity. We already have more “stuff” in our lives than we need, and it makes a difference to the families that we’ve adopted. Plus I feel that it has a little more of the “holiday spirit” than going out to whatever store and buying something that we probably don’t even need.

My family recently stopped exchanging gifts between us all as well. It’s less time, money and stress saved by not having to shop for gifts. Most of the time we were just exchanging gift cards anyway, which drove me crazy. Gift cards are nice and all, but absolutely no thought goes in to it. It’s a gift by default.

I love reading everyone’s perspective. I especially like the idea of the “love journal” wherein each person writes new entries for each other birthdays, anniversary, and Christmas. I might have to steal that one!

We’ve been together 28 years (married for 12). We’ve been dirt-poor together, and we’ve been well-off. We have never established a gift budget for one another, because our styles are so different! I typically start thinking about gifts in October, since both our anniversary and his birthday are in November. Anything I don’t gift on those occasions get bumped to Xmas. As a result, I have the leisure to shop well and reasonably.

He, on the other hand, doesn’t think about it until 3 days before Xmas. So he tends to buy at the last minute, and pay more.

Either way, we both get what we want in a way that allows us to be ourselves. We’re both thoughtful gift-givers, so even if the price tag is within reason, the gift itself is almost always special.

We are preferring experience gifts as we get older, especially for our anniversary. With Xmas, we have rented a cabin at a lake for a few days after the obligatory family visit. And THAT has been awesome. For various reasons, we haven’t been able to that for a couple of years, and I look forward to doing that again next year.

My family has had lots of success with “stocking stuffers”: we buy several very small (usually food) things for each person, and wrap them in scraps of wrapping paper left over from the years when we really did presents. That way we get the feeling of opening lots of presents on Christmas morning, but are not stuck with any unwanted gifts that stick around forever like that ugly sweater.

For instance, this year, my sister gets special shaving cream and cereal that you can only buy at Trader Joe’s, my mom is getting three used books that were each $3 from her favorite authors, and my dad will get some pistachios and maple candy. Total cost- $30?

We set a limit of $25 for exchanging our gifts this year. We’ve been so busy lately, and I keep saying to him, “you remember about a year and a half ago, when all we did was walk the dog, eat nachos, and watch our netflix movies? When do we get that part of our life back again?” My plan is to put together a kit to have that kind of night sometime in January – everything to make Nachos, a new set of flannel pjs, and whichever Netflix movie is up next.

We do exchange gifts, but usually they are small. We decided a while ago that we’d have a three-gift limit: something you want, something you need, and a surprise.

For the want-gift one of us will usually mention something we wouldn’t buy ourselves, and the need-gift is usually something one of us has been too lazy to replace recently, like underwear or a torn-up backpack. And the surprise-gift is a surprise. Two years ago I got a pocket ninja. We’ve never set a spending limit but the cost is usually less than $100.

We do the same thing now for our son now that he’s old enough to understand. Our infant daughter is too young for the concept. Instead her gift will be a set of keys to chew on, plus an ID card and lanyard, in the hope that she’ll stop stealing mine. Every morning she cries when I have to take them back to get into the office or lock the front door.

I like getting gifts… I like the sneaky-sneaky aspect of picking out something for my husband that he normally wouldn’t buy for himself but that I know he’ll love. :) It’s easier for us because we only have partially-jointed finances. (I manage my own money just about to the penny, and I control the “joint” money, but I separate off his bit and that’s all his to control as he pleases.)

This year, we kinda agreed to do nothing extravagant because of all the work we just did to my car. ($3k+, completely optional… We wanted to do it.) However, I started a new thing two years ago where I buy him a new ornament for Christmas, mostly because he had none to begin with and I had mine from growing up. I’ll go and get that for him this year, and I’m thinking of trying to find a scarf for cheap. (He said he’d wear it if I bought it, lol!)

It works for us because we really don’t do Christmas for anyone else. Maybe it’s snobby, but we’re too broke to try and do that. It’s nice to do it now, so hopefully we’re never expected to end up doing it later. I’d rather give gifts to people during the year for no particular reason at all. More unexpected.

My partner and I are both graduate students and live on a very limited budget. We set a $25 limit and use it creatively – she knits and last year I got some amazing knitted pieces and other crafted presents. I am giving her a combination of crafted items that have special meaning for us and items I bought very cheaply – used books, some dvds i got for free b/c of a credit card points program, and some small bits of plastic jewelry, which she loves. Also, my birthday was last weekend and she bought be some nice cheese and sausages – things she doesn’t eat but she knows i love. it’s definitely the thought and creativity that counts!

We don’t exchange Christmas gifts with each other. We agreed on that long ago when we first started dating, because we were in college and poor. It’s just easier on both of us not to have a gift expectation. And giving/receiving gifts is not a major way of showing affection for either of us. It is for some people, and that’s valid and okay. Lots of people on this thread have discussed how it works for them. (It’s fluffy pop-psych, but The Five Love Languages describes some of the major styles of showing affection, and gift-giving is one of them.)

When I proposed to him last year, I did it on Christmas Eve and gave him a ring in a wrapped box. Before he knew what it was, he looked stunned and a little upset because I’d broken the agreement not to buy Christmas presents — “But I didn’t get you anything,” he said. I told him it didn’t matter and to open it. Then he figured out that it wasn’t really a Christmas present after all; Christmas Eve just happened to be my timing, so I went with the theme.

We somehow fell into the habit of giving each other things we know we want, but aren’t willing to put the money into. For example, my husband’s Doc Martens are worn out, but he’s trying to squeeze another year out of them because they’re so expensive. I don’t want him to have sore feet, so his gift this year is a new pair.

Another thing that works for us is that I’ve been asking him to complete household projects as gifts to me. He enjoys carpentry, but if there was no “gift guilt” he’d never get some of them done. For my last birthday, he replaced the front door.

@Adam – I agree with #3 @prufro that backpacking is a rocking christmas. I’m jealous.
@JD – Glad you admit you were being lame :) see #2 Beths comment, great ideas.

Christmas can become commercial and we have tried several of the strategies mentioned in the previous comments to various success. This year we are exchanging gifts of course within a budget and having big family get together at grandmas. Im looking forward to the food, jesting, teasing, card games and will revel in the whole bigness of Christmas and what it means.

I am with the “thought that goes into the gift” argument. My husband and I have joint finances, but a small percentage of each check we get to keep to spend however we want. This is what we use for gifts throughout the year.
I spent more than normal for my husband’s birthday last month because he wanted to get into home-brewing beer. I bought the starter kit for him and arranged with friends for some of the additional accessories and ingredients kits so he could get started right away. For Christmas there will be a couple of gifts for him from the kids and myself, but all very inexpensive things that he needs but I know he would never buy himself.
Last weekend he asked me what I wanted. He had already purchased one gift that he came up with on his own but had some money left in what he had planned to spend. I know that I will probably be getting a new pair of sewing shears that I desperately need along with whatever else he came up with on his own.
I love being suprised by what he and the kids come up with, regardless of the price. I would hate to either not exchange or exchange pre-planned gifts. What fun is that?

Just like many others who’ve commented, my husband and I have stopped exchanging Christmas gifts 15 years ago–we were both terrible at picking out gifts! We love getting gifts for the kids and mostly we just enjoy the meaning of the season.

We also don’t do anniversaries, birthdays (just a cake), or Valentine’s Day. We figure it’s just another day! My husband takes off from work for Mother’s Day…still not sure if that’s for me or for his mother. Mother’s Day and Father’s Day will never be for us until our own parents are deceased :)

My husband and I used to spend $100 – $200 on each other. Then came children so now the focus is on them. We usually get a little something for each other, but it often involves getting something the other person NEEDS but hates to shop for or do themselves.

For instance, this year I put two boxes of his favorite candy in his stocking and will likely get him boxers, dress socks, and tickets to a basketball game that he can share with a friend or his dad or brother (he never gets any time to himself so he should enjoy this male bonding time). I’ll probably get new blinds for the kids rooms–installed of course–and a telescoping duster since he accidentally threw ours out with the old vacuum cleaner. Yes, very romantic. :)

My husband and I stopped buying Christmas gifts for each other after we were married for a couple of years. Now, after Christmas, we buy one item that we both want and will use. For example, last year we bought a nice chair for working at the computer (the old one was pretty uncomfortable). This year, we will buy a new phone/answering machine (the one we have now randomly hangs up on people). This way, we get to take advantage of the after-Christmas sales, and are sure to get something we both like.

Every Christmas since having our first child, I have a custom, personalized 12-month calendar made up with an adorable picture for each month of the coming year. My dad gets one, my in-laws get one, my husband’s two grandmothers each get one, I get one, and my husband gets one too. This is usually pretty pricey since those things run about $20 each ($17 or $18 each if you order in bulk, as I do), but I budget for it as a Christmas expense.

My husband and I always exchange gifts. I’d be hurt if I didn’t get anything at all from him, and I get a HUGE charge out of hunting for a special gift for the important people in my life. Sometimes I think I get more “bang” out of finding a gift and gloating over it than the recipient ever gets out of the actual gift itself. ;-) To me, the fun part is finding something the person wouldn’t have thought to buy for himself, but will love and use.

Cheaper is better… the other day I got my dad a wine stopper (he loves wine!) with a cross on top (he is very very Catholic!) from the thrift store for only 25 cents. It’ll make a fun stocking stuffer. Shhh, don’t tell him!

We go back and forth between buying small stuff and big stuff for each other. This is the first year we’re cash only so we had to discuss budget, gifts, wants, etc. This year we bought a Wii since they’re finally in our “joint” Christmas budget. My favorite Christmas though was the year I spent waaaayyy too much on him (on credit back then). I got him a tool chest for the garage, but inside of it I put an ipod which 4 years ago cost $300. He still has it though; both things actually so they’ve gotten lots of use! He surprised me one year with a TomTom and that has also gotten lots of use. It is fun to surprise them, but we’ve had lots of fun with the Wii already and we have family coming into town so we’ll get alot of use out of it in a short period of time.

“Exchange specific pre-planned gifts. A lot of people we know fall into this category, as well. They buy each other gifts, but in reality each spouse actually picks out their own.”

Isn’t that the point of a Christmas list? The person tells you what they want and you get it from them?
True, everyone might as well spend money on themselves in that case, but at least nobody gets an ugly gift they hate and can’t return.

Anyway. My husband and myself don’t exchange gifts. Sometimes we do nothing at all (we’re not religious so we don’t celebrate holidays), sometimes we get something for the both of us saying it’s “for the holidays” (so, basically a splurge at the end of the year), or sometimes we each get something for ourselves (same with birthdays).

That doesn’t mean we don’t get each other a small gift of some sort, just nothing big.

I don’t feel bad at all about it, because the thing is, if I find something my husband would like, I get it right away, and give it to him right away. Depriving of something he would like until the date is “proper” doesn’t sound like much of a gift to me.

Also, my husband is terrible with that. I loe him dearly but his gifts kinda suck. I tend to think “oh, great, we wasted money again” instead of “wow, you shouldn’t have!”
So we decided it would be best if we each got our own gifts, with a specific budget that is the same for both of us. This way, no disappointment.

We, too, like Avistew, don’t give each other holiday gifts because we aren’t religious. But we really have a good time buying and wrapping and giving gifts for those who do celebrate these holidays. And, we have been having fun buying each other anniversary presents (after 30 years of cohabitating we got married 4 years ago) based on the “traditional” list of what is appropriate, and we love getting each other elaborate “theme” gifts for birthdays — giving birthday presents is, I think, really nice because our birthdays are months apart and it’s really an opportunity for each person to feel special and loved. Before we had an anniversary of our own, we celebrated Valentines Day in a big way, but now we give a check to the local food bank as our joint celebration of VDay….

i’m a natural giver so i want to give my husband something he wants or needs. it really varies every year though. two years ago we did a $10 each little something, last year we did nothing, this year we’re doing $30 but only because we’ve been so frugal that we have needs now. i want/need some pink wool socks and new (cute!!!) houseshoes, he needs a new wallet and i bought some fancy hot sauce for him.

Experience gifts are great, but there is also something special about getting to open that little package filled with something your loved one thought enough to acquire for you. It doesn’t have to be expensive, just expressive.

My husband likes to buy me a big gift once a year that takes care of our anniversary, Christmas and my birthday, all of which fall in December and January. One year it was a laptop, one year a plane ticket, etc. Though I am good at sticking to my budget, I am bad at saving up for a long time to buy big things, and also he hates having to shop, so this method works well for him.

On the other hand I like to buy him many smaller gifts for each holiday. I like to think about what to get him, shop, and also I like to make gifts. He is great at saving up for big things but never gets himself those small things that make your life easier or more comfortable. So this method works well for me.

It’s good to hear I’m not the worst husband ever. I just asked my wife yesterday what she wanted for Christmas. She said she wanted the new Stephen King book “Under the Dome”. I still need to take the kids to buy her something too.

Christmas gifts are for kids… But we still buy a few things for us too, just so there are some presents under the tree address to us…

We stopped exchanging gifts for a time. It seemed sensible; we’ve downsized to very simple holidays, gotten away from consumerism, and really, have everything we need. And yet, a few years ago we realized something was missing. So we sat and talked for a few hours, about what we needed (internally) from holidays and each other. We discovered that the ritual of giving one another small, heartfelt gifts enhanced our intimacy and sense of partnership. It actually affirmed our bond and our marriage. Sometimes the gift is an experience, sometimes not. But whatever it is, the act of giving brings us closer together.

@JD: ideas for Kris — you guys are planning a trip to Paris right? So along with the luggage theme how about a travel journal with some thoughtful notes about how much you are looking forward to the trip together, or a “certificate” for a dinner cruise on the Seine?

My husband accused me last night of being both stingy and a bad gift giver! I feel like all he wants are “toys” he’ll use once or video games. It is hard for me to get over my own practicality when thinking of gifts for others, but I think it is something I need to work on. Especially since he is accommodating to my frugality (which is more than his) throughout the year.

Husbands/Menfolk out there — If you are the “toy”/”video game” type, are you always a little disappointed if you don’t get these types of gifts?

I’m proudly frugal. I put a lot of brakes on spending here in our family. But gifts to the spouse to me are a way of keeping the warm, fuzzy feeling alive. And that’s worth so much more than cash in our bank accounts.

Having said that, there are ways to give the perfect gift without blowing away the entire savings. Then, there are also expensive gifts that are so worth it. The key is variety. It helps to keep in mind that the overall objective is keeping the marriage real and happy. Oh and puhleese let’s be honest with ourselves that an unexpected sweet gift from time to time does keep our eyes twinkling!

Practical ideas? My hubby made me cry lately when he wrote me a love letter on a high schoolish lined pad paper. You see, we met each other while I was in school. That wasn’t expensive at all, but I wouldn’t trade it with an LV bag or an Omega watch.

The other Christmas, he bought me an iPod, which in my own standards is spending too much on a gift. But I love it!

We always exchange gifts. In the past our budget has been much higher, but this year because we’ve just bought a new house and have a baby on the way we reined it back to $100 each. I’ve bought him something fun and also gone halves with his uncle (who has him in the family Kris Kringle) to buy a laptop bag he specifically asked for. I’ve no idea what he’s bought me, though I gave him an ideas list. We have our own spending money every month, but often gift requests are things we’d like but which we’d not buy for ourselves. (eg: my sewing machine, which I’d been saving for, or pampering things like massages.)

Having said that, our best gifts have been experiences. We both love food and dining out so for my birthday one year in England, he arranged for us to go to the Fat Duck in Brae, the second-best restaurant in the world. I don’t think anything will ever come close to the thoughtfulness and delight of that weekend. And I think he’d say the time I gave him the chance to drive an Aston Martin DB9 (his dream car) was up there – he still talks about it years later. So JD, if there’s something you know Kris would really love to do but probably wouldn’t arrange for herself, then arrange it.

We exchange gifts… and like some of the others, with no set limit. But we both have a pretty good idea of how much we can afford to spent…and it’s a not a competition of who can spend more! We try to buy things we think the other person will genuinely enjoy :-)

A lot of couples don’t stick to traditional anniversary gifts after the first few years (a very high number do do something paper-based for the first wedding anniversary). But most just go out for dinner or for a weekend away in the years after that.
However I also think it’s sad not to give each other gifts for Christmas.
Why not consider giving her something that’s about your relationship? She’ll love it!

“I’ll repeat the advice I always spout when people want gift ideas without spending a lot of money: surprise them. In my experience, that’s the greatest gift you can give.”

It’s wonderful to give my spouse something he doesn’t expect, like a book I know he’ll love, or a hat that’ll make him laugh, or a day out in his favorite park. Last year he gave me a new stapler, and I was so touched that he’d noticed the decrepit state of my current stapler! The thrill of gifts like that is that the receiver knows the giver has tailored the gift to the individual. It’s trite but true: it’s the thought that counts (most).

At the minute all we seem to spend money on is bills, so it is nice to get a treat on christmas day as otherwise I don’t think we would spend the money. We are good with money at all other times so as you mentioned it is nice to see what someone gets me as a surprise

“However I also think it’s sad not to give each other gifts for Christmas.”

My husband and I don’t exchange gifts, but in our defense, Christmas is about so much more than gift-giving. And we’re not the least bit sad! We are blessed with each other and w/3 wonderful children.

There are so many other things we exchange as well…our laughter and conversation, for one, and we surprise each other w/something special during the season — my DH will come home with a great tawny port wine and some stilton cheese and I might come back from shopping for the kids w/a nice dress shirt and Christmas tie for him to wear to mass on Christmas Eve. He will also get some small things from the kids in his stocking (i.e. beef jerky).

His HUGE family from all over the tri-state area gets together every year for bowling (and awards!) on 12/26. It’s a family reunion that they’ve been doing for over 25 years. They also do a great Christmas party w/a secret Santa gift exchange (with gag gifts thrown in to make things fun!) and it’s at a different house each year.

So it’s not at all about deprivation; it’s about the day we were married and how we realize that as long as we have each other and our health, then that’s all we could ask for!

Last year my ex and I spent way too much on presents. I felt the pressure, and so did he, and I ended up spending around $300 on an assortment of gifts for him, and he bought me $500 earrings. We couldn’t afford all that, but we were still in bad spending patterns back then.

Now that we’ve broken up and I’m smarter about money and almost out of debt myself, I realize that spending that much WAS stupid, and trying to outdo each other just added stress, which is pretty stupid considering Xmas is supposed to be a happy time of year.

I think that as with anything else, some balance is good. This year I set a spending cap for people – like my sister and I will only spend $100ish on each other. Maybe if I’m wealthy one day I can go back to the extravagant gift giving, but I think setting a budget is a good idea for most.

Just do what makes you happy. I think a vacation is a GREAT Xmas present. Xmas shouldn’t have to be a chore. I think saying “Ok we’re spending $100” (or whatever price) frees you, as well. This Xmas is much more fun for me than last year’s was….

You know, we used to exchange gifts a lot when we were dating. Now we decide each year what we want to do. We usually end up doing something together (versus separate gift buying). For instance, sometimes we take a weekend trip together (usually something local, like the oregon coast). This year though, we’ve decided that we’re going to invest in a new flat screen TV together – part one of ditching comcast (i.e. get a new TV that we can connect to the internet with). This is a big deal for us because pretty much everything we own (furniture/electronics are used or are really old).

My husband and I normally don’t do much for each other, not having tons of extra money, but for the last few years he has been getting me expensive (in my opinion) gifts that were more “wants” than “needs”. This year I bought tickets for a Bon Jovi concert and asked him to make that my gift. That way he feels like we spent lots of money on me, and got me something I will really like, and I’m happy because I saved money because I would have bought the tickets anyway!

Of course the husband and I exchange presents. We enjoy thinking about and shopping for each other. It’s not a budget buster if you set aside $20 or $30 a month throughout the year. I like to splurge on restaurant gift cards–no expiry, and it’s a little luxury during the week if one of us has had a rotten day. Plus, no clutter or junky items lying around!

We budget for gifts as well (this year it’s $30), but we let each other know if there is something special we really want. Like, this year, I want new coffee cups, and creamer and sugar dish, and a little dish for sweetner packets. My morning coffee is the only “me” time I get, since we have small children, and I kinda want to snazz it up. :) He wants to fix up his bass guitar, so he wants a new pick guard, thumb rest, and pickup cover. Since these things are very specific, we’d never be able to pick them out for one another, so we have to let each other know! This works for us, since we’re so careful with our money, and we only try to buy things we really need or love. We’d never just go out and buy these things on our own, for ourselves. But our favorite part of Christmas is opening the Christmas stockings, so we make sure those are total surprises. His is usually ginsing tea (all for him, since I’ve been either pregnant or nursing a baby the last four years) beef jerky, his favorite candy bar, stickers or pez despensers (we’re big kids)- we LOVE Halloween,so one year I got him a tiny book of Halloween poems. Mine ususally has bath stuff, cute socks, nail polish, my favorite candy and the like. We wrap everything individually, so we get the fun of opening gifts. It isn’t expensive (never over $20), we get treats that we wouldn’t buy ourselves, and our “big” gifts are things that we really need or want. Works for us!

J.D., if you want to do something every year, and yet you don’t, there’s a reason you’re not doing it. You need to figure out what that reason is and why you’re choosing not to buy Kris a present.

I don’t mean to sound like I’m finger-wagging here; I’m just noting that for all sorts of things, when we “just don’t do” (whatever) that we think we should or want to do, what’s really going on is that either we really *don’t* want to do (whatever), or we want something more than (whatever).

We bought ourselves a new, super-quiet air-conditioner (which will be very useful come June). Considering we would’ve bought it anyway, as it was majorly on sale, we’re really just tagging it as a “Christmas gift” to make it seem like we got a gift for ourselves. We got married this year, and just the fact that we get to see each other every day pretty much makes every day feel like Christmas. We did get gifts for each other in years past (before last year, when we were saving for the wedding), but since we have very different views on gifts, it didn’t really work out so well. I’m big on thoughtful, surprise gifts that could be $3 or $30 and DH would rather pick his gift and, oddly, was raised to believe that a gift is “something that you get for someone that he/she wants but can’t afford for themselves”. So, we each got each other the type of gift that we’d like to receive and neither fully appreciated the gifts. Now that we have joint finances, the whole thing is pretty moot. We’re now saving up for a little anniversary getaway that we’re both really looking forward to.

You have given each other gifts: a wedding; things for the baby; your big trip. It wasn’t traditional gift-giving but it was gift-giving nevertheless.

For Christmas we spend more on our kids (like most parents I expect!) I always buy my husband a few things and try to keep it something interesting. This year his high school had their 50th anniversary and produced a book and DVD. I bought it for him. He will be pleasantly surprised I believe. Also bought him some nice personal products. All total less than $100.

My birthday is the end of November so I give my kids a list of things I might like for birthday and Christmas. They buy things for me from the list and share it with my husband. It helps them; but they also buy things they think I might want. It never amounts to a huge amount of $ either, which is fine.

For me, I’d rather spend the money on things for my kids that they will enjoy (bought a Wii for younger kids and Flip video cameras for older two), use and learn from (for instance: books! we love books!)

I love exchanging gifts with my husband. It’s a tangible way to show your partner that you know them, think of them, want something nice for them. The gift is a reminder of the person you love every time you see it. Lots of t-shirts or records or bags I could have bought myself are more special to me because of where they came from :)

I have bought something for him in the past, but the past couple of years, we have gone to joint gifts. Last year’s present was our honeymoon. This year, our present is some nice cookware (that went on sale!) that is easy to clean (as he washes dishes) and I love to cook with it.

His sort of present is lasik in January – something he has wanted for a while. With using our FSA account, we are cutting taxes and getting a great quality of life benefit. My christmas present is that he always takes me to buy a real christmas tree – not very eco-friendly or frugal, but something I really love.

I am too picky about jewelry for him to pick any out for me, and we discuss any purchases over about $100 to make sure the other is okay with it. We are thinking about a PS3 (streaming netflix with blueray!) with some bonus money I made at work this year for having to work on Thanksgiving, which would be a nice treat.

My girlfriend and I are skipping the gift exchange this year on account of the fact that we’re moving in together…we’d rather combine funds and furnish our new living room, get a new coffee maker, or maybe even just go out for a fancy celebratory dinner, something we never get to do. Regardless, though, our Christmas celebration will be nothing compared to Baker’s amazing, if materially giftless, holiday.

We are trying something different this year, based on a great article in a recent Real Simple magazine.

Instead of purchasing gifts, my husband and I are going to give each other gifts that we already have in the house. We’ve been debt free since February, and didn’t want to make a huge deal out of spending for Christmas. So we’re going shopping through what we already have to surprise each other with our favorite things. It’s a great reminder of how much we already own that we take for granted.

My husband and I decided that instead of giving each other gifts, we would buy gifts for residents of the local veterans home. The few hundred dollars we would have spent on things neither of us need helped give these residents personal items, games, puzzles, blankets, etc. I also gave to two book drives for children, an animal shelter and the Salvation Army. This has been my best Christmas ever.

I also get a lot of happiness from giving presents that I KNOW will be appreciated, and my boyfriend is one of the few people I splurge on at Christmas. Our budget is Â£150 (around $250, I know, it is far too high) but the problem I have is trying not to go over the budget in getting thoughtful presents since I know his taste so well and I love his face when he opens a surprise he loves.

We do give each other hints about what we’d like (I’m getting him a dressing gown as one present, which he asked for as his old one is falling apart) but we don’t let on which ones we’ve picked from the list or hint at what the other presents are.

Last year, instead of lots of things, I got him an Xbox 360, having previously insinuated that I was cutting my budget due to low finances. I knew he was planning on getting it himself in January, and the memory of the look of surprise and happiness on his face still makes me happy when I watch him play games on it.

My husband and I don’t blend our money so if he buys something for me or I for him, it really is from one to the other. This year, I told him what I would like and since he had no idea what he wanted except for new clothes, and since I have qualms about picking out clothing for people, I’m giving him gift certificates to a few different stores he likes. It’s not the most romantic or frugal decision, but both of us like buying new clothing periodically and being able to get clothes for free because someone gave you a gift certificate is pretty sweet.

In terms of how much to spend, we’ve both spent around $200 on each other this Christmas.

My wife and I have joint finances and allotted amounts to spend on each other. Funny thing is that we both purchased items that we both can enjoy. How did we avoid each other finding out? Simple, we just postponed entering receipts or checking the bank balance for a week.

One of my greatest joys is surprising my husband with gifts! (and also, in the gifts I receive, seeing the time and effort he put into thoughtful presents–and keeping them a secret).
In the day to day routine of worrying about everyone else and so many holiday obligations, it’s a lot of fun to “treat” each other and share that moment of giving and receiving. We have both joint and separate accounts, which enables this “surprise” option. It’s much deserved as neither of us tend to spend much money on ourselves. It’s my favorite part of Christmas! And it keeps the magic and mystery alive!

If it means something to the recipient, it’s a great gift. Period. I almost invariably have something I’d love to have but see as an indulgence — this year it’s a molcajete — that isn’t necessarily expensive, and it tops my Xmas list. My husband is the same way. One year I gave him a small book that I made of all of the words that reminded me of him, along with illustrations. This year I’m giving him an Xbox. Why? Because he has wanted one desperately for a year and a half (see Jason #35 for the exact reasoning why), thinks there’s no way I’ll ever “allow” it in our house, and it will surprise the heck out of him. And then when our 2nd kiddo arrives in May, I’ll get to make use of the Netflix subscription. :-) I went over our usual limit of $100, but I bought a refurbished system and I know he’ll make use of it. And honestly, after 10 years of marriage, I can’t wait to see his surprise when he realizes I went way outside my own comfort zone to make him happy.

One of the best-received gifts we’ve ever given was to my brother and sister-in-law when my nephew was born. They asked me to design their birth announcement, so I went one further and had a big batch printed, ordered envelopes, and then pre-addressed and pre-stamped based on the mailing list I cobbled together from my mom and my sister-in-law’s mother. We told them we were giving them The Gift of Time, and they LOVED it. It cost us a couple of hours and $30.

JD, I think you pay very close attention to Kris on a regular basis and you’d have no problem coming up with a beautiful, thoughtful gift! Just keep a running list throughout the year when you hear her mention something.

My wife and I usually count a large purchase as a combined gift. For example, this year we bought ourselves a Wii with several games. This was an item we were both wanting, and it seemed fitting to split the cost. In previous years, most gifts involved major home improvement purchases (i.e. buying a hottub or various appliances). Basically, the simplest way to answer that question is with another question: “Does it make you happy?” In our case, the hot tub made us happy, and we are pretty sure we will enjoy the Wii. If either of you feels cheated or slighted by the exchange that consider something else.

One thing I am learning about relationships is that the best way to get into trouble is to compare yourselves to others. I think your “gift” of spending time together on an extravagant vacation is an amazing idea. Others might think that you “should” still get her a gift. Only you and your wife can answer whether anything else is “necessary”. The two of you define the rules to YOUR relationship!

I love gift-wrapping too much not to get him something. This year I budgeted about $30 per person. I prefer to buy him practical gifts rather than trinkets. This year I bought him a movie and a book that he’s been wanting for a while. We tell each other what we’re giving so we don’t accidentally buy duplicates and we both get more excited if we know what it is. I really don’t like surprises.

For birthdays we do 6 or 7 cheap little useful gifts in a box or bag, like a hamper, with a note explaining why we bought each item. Our anniversary is the week after Valentine’s Day, so we celebrate the two together with a nice dinner out and some time together.

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My name is J.D. Roth. I started Get Rich Slowly in 2006 to document my personal journey as I dug out of debt. Then I shared while I learned to save and invest. Twelve years later, I've managed to reach early retirement! I'm here to help you master your money — and your life. No scams. No gimmicks. Just smart money advice to help you get rich slowly. Read more.

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